


The Song Is You

by EdmondZippo



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Depressing, Depression, East coast suburbs, F/M, I dont know I've never been to the US, Inspired by Music, Modern AU, POV Rey, POV Rey (Star Wars), Rey Needs A Hug, Sad, Sad Rey (Star Wars), Sadness, Sinatra, Singing, Suburbia, artist, east coast, in bed all day but in a bad way, probably new jersey or something, sculptor, singing in weird places, video blogger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdmondZippo/pseuds/EdmondZippo
Summary: Based on a twitter prompt by @dyadskyberheart:He's a blogger who always finds strange places to perform Frank Sinatra's songs. Today, Rey finds him in a trash can near her house. She was upset because of her work, but now she's smiling. He sings I've Got a Crush on You, not taking his eyes off her.Except she's not smiling. Let me apologize in advance because this thing is going to start pretty bleak and then move on to happy. I hope it doesn't take too long, for all of our sakes :)
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Reylo
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	1. 1960 - Nice 'n' Easy, Track 4 of 12

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter title refers to the song I base the chapter on and it works like this: year of release, album title, track number.  
> Give it a listen whenever you can!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, guys, today, I find myself standing in a good old American trash can in the suburbs and, uh…” the voice began.
> 
> What? What the hell was happening in front of her house that would make someone say that? Rey surrendered and got up, ready to close the window, but someone truly was standing in a good old American trash bin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, chapter one! Cool.  
> I love Sinatra, so this prompt was a "do or do not" thing for me. I sort of have an arc already, and I hope I won't take too long to get there.  
> I also hope you'll like this!

Why did it suddenly feel like a million people wanted something from her? Why were there so many unread emails? _Dear Ms. Johnson… Miss Johnson… Rey…_ This was not a good time, and it hadn’t been for… she looked outside the window of her first-floor workshop. The trees had started the process of putting on their yearly dress of green. Spring. They were out of the winter and ready to live again. She was just… there. Rey returned her eyes to her screen. It had not been a good time for… a long, long time. The email she was reading contained another suggestion that she should reconsider this rare opportunity to be paid handsomely for her work on the condition that this piece be moved to the top of her list. This was never going to happen, and for two reasons. She could see the first one out of the corner of her left eye. It stood there, unfinished, with the weight of its mere existence and deadline of less than ten days. The second reason was that she was not willing to work and create, devote her time and energy, to this particular individual. His insistence on money and the way he wrote had profoundly displeased her. The first time he’d contacted her, she’d googled his name: Ronen Tagge. The scion of a formerly politically influential family whose fortune had come from heavy industry, he was the sort of man to spend the kind of money that some people made in a whole life of hard work just because he could. His social media reeked of surface-level personality, spoiled brat with barely remarkable facial hair, and aimless existence filled with earthly pleasures. Plus, he had terrible taste. In everything from his glasses to his house, and let’s not talk about his friends. They looked like clones: same face, same white teeth, same stupid chromosomes. She considered deleting his email and move on, but something told her that she needed to politely decline his offer one last time. One always had to be polite. The moral high ground was a comfortable place.

Somehow, this exhausted her. The very idea of her hands hovering over the keyboard made her want to sleep for a century or two. She also felt like screaming but thought better. Although she had no clients among her neighbours, an eleven o’clock piercing shriek might not be the best thing for her depressed business. She closed her laptop, put her elbows on her desk, hands on her eyes, and exhaled loudly. She gave the outside world another look. It had been three days since she had last left her house. Opening the window did not count. She did open it, though, only because the room needed some fresh air. As she walked to the door, the first reason for refusing Tagge’s proposition called to her. She stopped and looked at it: two hands, their fingers intertwined, with a wedding ring on both fingers. Or at least it would be upon delivery. She just had to do her job. The couple who’d ordered the clay sculpture was getting married, and it was their gift to each other. She thought of the two Romeos, as she had grown fond of calling them. Five years almost to the day after they had met, they were going to tie their lives together in a manner that only death, lies or lawyers could break. Had the situation been different, she would have refused them. As sweet as they had appeared, she would not have taken the job had Rose not been the one to introduce them. It was because she owed Rose so much that she was now working on something that made her so sad. The sheer joy that radiated from the Romeos bewildered her. She wondered how people could be so happy, so unafraid. Apparently, they just could. Rey had not dared ask them questions, as she usually did with other clients to try and get a sense of what they wanted. As glad as she could be (or pretend to be, she wasn’t sure anymore) for, in this instance, people in love, the less she knew, the better. It all hurt too much. So, she had forced herself. Gone into herself, in her memories, to try and find the inspiration to complete the work. For the Romeos, yes, but especially for Rose. As a thank you.

Rey tore herself from the clay hands and exited the room, leaving behind her the stained walls, the scratchy floors, and several unfinished works, some of them sleeping beneath a drape. She resisted the urge to walk straight into her bedroom and crash on her bed, as she had often done over the past months, and went down the stairs. The fortunately not-yet-empty coffee pot captured her gaze the moment she entered the kitchen. The dirty dishes did, too, but she could only work on one thing at a time. She filled a mug and fled to the living-room. A blanket that used to be neatly folded now ran along the couch. She asked a fallen cushion what it was doing on the floor. Out loud. When it gave no answer, she took the matter into her own hands with a groan and picked it up. And then she insulted it, for good measure. After that, she looked at Jodie. Jodie looked back at her, then away. Rey walked to her and knelt it front of her, forcing the cat to pay attention to her mistress. Jodie, with her paws (unlike the blanket) neatly folded beneath her, looked bored. Rey lifted a hand to caress the soft head. Jodie purred. The TV stand needed dusting. She looked at it, discouraged, and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the dust had not magically disappeared. Rey sighed.

Her mug in hand, she walked outside, where she had fewer responsibilities because things concerned her less. A half-smoked cigarette? Not her concern. A flyer for last Sunday’s church concert? Even less of a concern. Not her trash. Trash. She looked at the bin that sat in front of her house. Empty. Wasn’t today pick up day? She ran back inside, careful not to spill her coffee. Before entering, however, she decided to leave her mug on the final step that led to her door. She’d pick it back up. Back in the kitchen, she struggled with her full bag to get it out of the bin. When she finally succeeded, she noticed that the bottom was leaking. This warranted another bag. Which she was out of. She swore and put the bag on the floor. Nothing she couldn’t clean up later. She pulled on the yellow strings but one broke. She swore louder and more profusely. Rey decided to carry the thing outside fast, and she did exactly that, kicking her coffee mug on the way. Wow. What a day. She dropped the bag in the bin, wiped her hands on her dirty work shirt, put them in her dirty work pants pockets and went left. Going around the block would be enough to evacuate whatever she was feeling, she hoped.

Rey walked slowly to the corner while breathing deeply. Her first impulse had been, and honestly still was, to surrender to the negativity that his day inspired so far. She was glad to even have had this idea of resisting. Normally, she’d crawl back into bed at the first sign of a shit day. She’d had to admit that the work that Rose had brought had changed things a bit. The sense of purpose it had given her had made it harder for her to give up. Rey smiled at the thought of her friend. One reason to get out of bed if there had ever been one. A piece of a conversation they’d had one night came to her. When Rey had said that she didn’t know how to thank her for… well, everything, Rose had said exactly that: _get up in the morning and go through your day. If not for you, then for me. And then one day, it’ll all be you._ And she had given her one of her brightest smiles. Rey walked in the memory until the sound of brakes on asphalt brought her back to the present. The awful sound came from a slightly beaten up car, black as night, with chrome elements on the wheels and all around it. It had pulled in front of the stop sign. In it, two people. One was a man with shoulder length dark hair and at least one imposing arm the hand of which rested on the hood of the car. Through the open window she heard him suggest that the driver took a left, that they would find _it_ , that the suburbs couldn’t be this boring. His head turned so he could look in front of him, and Rey saw a big straight nose with the same kind of presence as the arm. The head kept turning as he looked right to see if a car was coming, and when he looked further right, his dark eyes landed on her and his thick, vibrant lips parted slightly. The car went left, and he kept his gaze on her as long as he could. When she couldn’t see him anymore, she could have sworn he’d been smiling in that last second. The face stayed with her for a moment, at which point Rey closed her eyes and chased it out of her mind. It was in a shiver that she realized that she had stopped walking. She turned the corner.

As the short outing came to an end, she passed Jocasta’s house. The old woman, a retired librarian, sat on her porch every morning from spring to autumn and read for an hour or two, depending on the weather, but never on Wednesdays, which was her grocery shopping day. Presently, she wasn’t sitting on her porch, which could both mean grocery shopping and that she was done with her morning reading. Another sound, much softer this time, alerted her to her neighbour’s presence: the wheels of a shopping cart. There she was, in her large, sky blue coat and her eternal cliché librarian tight bun of white hair. They met in front of her house. Did she need any help? No, she did not, sweetie, thank you. Today was a beautiful day! The sun had given her a strength she hadn’t felt course through her in months! She should take advantage of it! But she had work to do. Ah, work! Jocasta was glad to be done with it! She laughed with delight and wished Rey a good day before walking to her door, her hand firmly gripping the handle of her cart.

Rey, whose spirits hadn’t managed to stay afloat, grimly walked in her dimly lit house. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. This wouldn’t do. She pulled the living room curtains. What a dramatic change. On the couch, Jodie blinked. _I know_ , Rey thought, _but… you know_. Jodie did not, in fact, know.

As she made her way up the stairs, she had to fight the overwhelming desire to go left into her bedroom and crash on her bed rather than right and back to work. But back to work it was because it had to be. She sat at her desk and opened the laptop. Rose had asked her why she insisted on doing the computer work where she did the actual work. Her unused room could very well be turned into an office. Rey’s reason was simple. The mood, the smells, everything about the workshop grounded her in her work. She needed to think and communicate like the artists she was during her interactions with her clients. This way, she felt like she wouldn’t compromise, especially when it came to people like Tagge and the promise of money. It turned out that she was to be tested again at this very moment. One of this morning’s emails came from the Romeos. In it, they asked how the work was going ( _please forgive us but we’re SO excited!!!_ ) and if they could have a ( _like, the tiniest_ ) sneak peek. This was going to be a no, but she pushed the writing of her reply to later. The number next to _unread_ was still too high. The whole world was in her inbox: clients, the bank, the beauty parlour she and Rose had gone to that one, _singular_ time, the streaming service that told her that this show that everyone but her had watched would be leaving the platform at the end of next month. And more.

Rey gave herself a couple of gentle slaps. It hurt, so she started rubbing her temples instead. She clicked on the reply button and started writing to the Romeos. It went well for a sentence or two, but something derailed her. Outside her window, a male voice was vocalizing. In the street. In front of _her_ house. Her eyes still on her screen, she listened to the voice and realized that she’d been hearing it for the past few minutes. She had tried to focus on her work so much that it just hadn’t registered. There had been another that answered the first one’s questions. Rey debated getting up to see what it was about. Plus, it required energy that her spilled coffee mug had not been able to give her.

“Hey, guys, today, I find myself standing in a good old American trash can in the suburbs and, uh…” the voice began.

What? What the hell was happening in front of her house that would make someone say that? Rey surrendered and got up, ready to close the window, but someone truly was standing in a good old American trash bin. Her trash bin. She recognized the hair, the thick arm, the thick everything of the man from the car. He wore black pants and a cream coloured shirt. Quite simple. She saw that the bag she had put in there was lying close by. Rey’s eyes went wide. What the fuck? A few feet from the trash bin man, who was still talking and presenting something, a camera was being tinkered with by a red headed man, sure to be the driver. They had gone left, so why were they in front of her house, now?

“So, uh, today’s song is _I’ve got a crush on you_ , from 1960s _Nice ‘n’ Easy_. This is Frank’s first album of that decade after a very successful 1950s. Now, this album is full of some of his most romantic ballads, and it immediately topped the charts here. Uh, what else, what else… Oh! This is a song by George and Ira Gershwin, whom we love, they’re awesome. Or, were, rather.” He laughed. What a stupid laugh. “Yeah, they were fantastic, and you guys know that because this isn’t the first song of theirs that I’ve sung for you, so, yeah. This is _I’ve got a crush on you_ , by the Gershwins, in a trash can.”

The man cleared his throat, closed his eyes, put a smile on his face, and opened his mouth:

_How glad the many millions of Annabelles and Lillians_

_Would be to capture me_

Rey’s hands had been ready to close the window for the past minute, yet it was still open. The singer’s hands had started moving. One landed in his left pocket, and the other flew lightly in the air, drawing the music that came out of his mouth.

_But you had such persistence, you wore down my resistance_

_I fell, and it was swell_

This was entertaining. Sort of. But mainly stupid. She pulled the window down but before it was completely closed, she heard these words:

_I’m your big and brave and handsome Romeo_

She looked behind her, at the hands she’d been working on, at this symbol of love.

_How I won you I shall never, never know_

Was this how it sounded? Was this the kind of thing they said to each other in the intimacy of their home? On their couch? In their bed? Rey thought about her own untidy couch. No one sat on it but her and Jodie. She thought of her own bed, that her warmth alone wasn’t enough to keep from being cold and feeling unwelcoming every night. She turned back to the window and took a sharp intake of air. He was looking at her. _What_.

_It’s not that you’re attractive_

She had not asked for that, thank you very much.

_But, oh, my heart grew active_

_When you came into view_

His smile had grown, had brightened his face. He took advantage of the couple of seconds that followed to awkwardly turn in her bin and face her. Then his left hand pointed at her. _What_.

_I’ve got a crush on you, sweetie pie_

Nope.

_All the day and night-time hear me sigh_

The camera started turning in her direction but he made a move to keep it on him.

_I never had the least notion_

_That I could fall with so much emotion_

This was upsetting.

_Could you coo, could you care_

_For a cunning cottage that we could share_

_The world will pardon my mush_

She wasn’t so sure about that.

_‘Cause I have got a crush, my baby on you_

Rey slammed the window down and ran out of her workshop. There. This day had managed to get her back in bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this!  
> Chapter two is going to be pretty bleak, and it may bring back bad memories to people who've suffered from intense sadness in the past. Let me tell you know, it's a flashback, so you won't have to deal with it too much. I just wanted you to know.


	2. 1958 – Sings for Only the Lonely, Track 1 of 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to the winter before the events of the story. Rey isn't in a good place at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said at the end of chapter one, this is sad, and bleak, and whatever you want to call it. If you've dealt with crippling sadness, depression, and all these terrible things, well... you may not want to read this one and wait for chapter three. I promise, she gets better and better.

Was there any place to go? She was alternatively looking at the walls, the ceiling, sometimes the floor, depending on her position under her sheets. She had ideas, but everything was so far. The bathroom was not _that_ far, and she did want to pee but… maybe it could wait, or maybe… she left the thought unfinished. Why even bother? The cold winter weather had pierced the defense of her walls, of her floors, of her doors. It had taken a hold of her in her bed, making her shiver when she wasn’t expecting it. What was the point of having the heat on if she was going to feel cold anyway?

A quake rocked her stomach. This was an answer. Hunger. This was why she felt so cold. She put her hands on her belly and pressed, because for some reason she thought that it would suppress the feeling, the noise. The sensation returned not long after, a few minutes or an hour. Rey moved her tongue in her mouth and was surprised to find the insides of her cheeks so close to each other. Were they creased? What did she look like? Oh, what fun it would be to know. Perverse fun, that is. She was starting to lack ammunition to throw at herself. She fumbled around for her phone. Where was it? It had to be somewhere. She had been careful not to throw it too far away in case she needed it for… something. Come on… Ah, there it was. She opened the camera and reversed it to look at herself. There she was. Yes, her cheeks were creased, and there were whole suitcases under her eyes. She looked so white, so frail, so sad. Alright, enough. She dropped the device and rolled around. Her left side was tired. The noise from her stomach returned, bringing memories of the small café a few blocks from here. Her dry mouth watered as much as it could at the thought of their delicious, well, everything: the coffee, the pastries, the pies, the sandwiches. How far it was, as much in space as in time.

What time was it? She had just looked at her phone, and yet, she had not paid attention to the time. The curtains were pulled, so that her room was in the dark most of the time, and even during the day, not a lot of light came in. Speaking of the day, it did not last long. From eight in the morning to five in the afternoon, and the sun wasn’t guaranteed. At night, the streetlights did what they could and gave a certain charm to the snow, if one was in a mood to enjoy it. She searched for her phone again. Four in the morning, it said. Huh. Four. Oh, yeah. Birds were singing. What were they doing here? Didn’t they know that anywhere was better than here? Now that she was paying attention, she was hearing other things, like cars in the distance. But they weren’t all that interesting, so she stopped listening. But the birds… She tried to hum along. Her voice, which she hadn’t used in she didn’t know how long, needed some warming up. There was some throat clearing, and then she started, but the birds’ tune was so erratic that she soon went on her own track. Pretty soon her humming started to resemble something from deep in her memories, a sad song she used to know. What was it? She hummed some more. No, there was no point, she wouldn’t find it.

An eternity later, Rey fell asleep. Opposite to the endless sea of loneliness she drifted on in her waking state, the dream she dreamt brought her to the shores of memory and longing, mixing the two to create a haven in which her constant anguish dried off her like the many drops of water that disappeared under the touch of the sun. Warmth welcomed her and covered her. Her eyes closed, she felt the thousand hands of the summer wind encourage her to walk forward to comfort, to safety. Her feet barely touched the sand, but its presence under them was reassuring. As she reached her destination, shade fell upon her without taking anything from her contentment. She drank and ate and entered a sleepy state. Fortunately, the bed wasn’t far. Without seeing it, she had known that it was there, that it waited for her to comfortably surrender to it. And so, she did. The sound of the waves softly landing on the shore was a melody that soothed her soul. Its monotony was reassuring. Blissful. Rey turned in the bed and found herself in contact with skin. It was no surprise, though. That skin and the person it belonged to had always been there, waiting for her. She kept her eyes closed, all the while keeping a clear idea of what the room looked like at any moment. The skin pulled her onto it and covered her with its arms. Rey was happy, so happy she could cry. The skin lifted a hand and touched her hair. How long she had waited for this. She smiled. The skin then pulled her closer and started whispering to her. There were no clear words. It was as if it whispered directly into her. It was part of her, and she was part of it. Rey lost any sense of time, space, and self. She had been there for an hour and a century, and wherever this island was, it did not matter because, as she became the skin and the skin became her, she…

…Woke up. The first moment of consciousness brought her right back to her miserable reality. She closed her eyes, trying to hold on to the dream, but it disappeared, went away from her, or maybe in her, in a place she couldn’t follow it. She searched for her phone, looking to distract herself. Social media did not move the needle of her mood. Nine twenty-nine o’clock. Should she try and do… anything? Her bladder very much encouraged her. She rolled to the edge of her bed, put one foot the floor. That was good. The other followed, and she was sitting. She rewarded herself with a sigh before getting up and walking, with heavy steps, to the bathroom.

She was half-surprised to pee as much as she did. It had been a long time. She washed her hands and felt her stomach grumble again. The towel was soft on her skin; so soft, in fact, that she unconsciously took it with her to the kitchen. It rested on her shoulder as she opened the fridge. Several slices of pizza rested upon each other in a plate. Two minutes later, one of them rested in her stomach, and her on her couch. Jodie was next to her, utterly captivated by the smells. Rey looked at her expectant face and gave her a few pieces of meat before turning on the TV on the streaming service she had recently subscribed to. Was there something on there that required the bare minimum of brain power she could dedicate to any task? Yes, there was. A reality TV show about people finding love in a wacky context, like never seeing the person one is involved with, or on an island during a storm or… She watched without watching, her mind still trying to capture her dream, the towel that had accompanied her nudged against her chest, against her skin. Ah, yes. Touch. What the dream had been about. A hopeless dream. A thing of the past. There had been a beach. She had known the beach. The blanket weighted by rocks, the basket. The company. Once, upon a summertime. She recalled the fun times, the kisses, the hands, the novelty of a blooming relationship. She recalled the eyes that saw only her, the words, the promises. And the breaking of them. The lies, the cheating, the weeping. The big words, the big voice. The way it had turned her into the little girl she had been. No wonder this, no wonder that. And her inner voice agreeing with all of this, because how could it be otherwise? She had heard it said to her so many times by so many people that… How could it be anything but true? Rey had long ago admitted to herself that she was broken. It was alright. The wound of her parents’ abandonment was… well, it was there. Open. Festering. The successive homes she’d known kept it that way. The big voices and the big words were like little knives that ran across her heart, kept it bleeding forever, and since these wounds weren’t visible, tangible, they never healed, kept her wincing under the open air of life as it washed over her.

This was why she was where she was: falsely sheltered in the prison of her own mind and feelings. Like the four-year-old girl she used to be, she stood in the corner, crying, lowering the hand with which she dried her tears to see someone reaching out to her, but the hand that promised love gave pain. Now, if a hand was to reach out to her, she would duck and run out of the corner. She knew, alright? She knew. Human beings are resilient. If there is a reality to adapt to, they do. Hers had been what it was for years, now. Hope maintained its presence in her like an unwanted guest. It kept her going at a painful pace, like a car running on fumes that never stopped because that tiny, little quantity was enough to keep it working, but not like the others. On the screen, two idiots whose name she did not know and did not care for kissed. She searched inside her for a piece of _happy for them_ , but there was none, and especially for TV idiots. How she wished that hope would let go of her! But it never would. It was part of her like her pain was. It _was_ her.

With the hope that resided deep inside her, at the bottom of the black hole around which her whole life gravitated, lived the longing for something better. Rey knew, as sure as she knew that the sky was blue, that if ever she was to find it again, she would never let go. She would cherish every second of every day. She would savor every word, every caress, because she knew what it was to be without it. It wasn’t worth it.


	3. 1957 - A Swingin' Affair, Track 2 of 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...she stared at her screen and the basic wallpaper she’d wanted to get rid of for the past year. Next, she opened her browser and stared at it as well. Finally, she surrendered and typed the words that had been living with her for the past three or four days, the words that she had kept to herself: trash can singing man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a happy chapter, folks!

“I plan on dancing all night and not sleep,” Rose went on. “Like, at all.”

Went on from what? Rey fought to go back to ten seconds before this sentence, but she found nothing.

“Sorry, what?” she surrendered.

“The wedding,” Rose articulated. “The wedding for which you’re creating this gorgeous representation of love upstairs.”

“Oh, yeah,” Rey caught up. Rose had been talking about that. It had just been so hard to focus. “Yeah, you’ll have to send me some pictures.”

Rose looked at her as if she’d suddenly started speaking an alien language. “It’s really weird but the words that are coming out of your mouth make it seem like you’re, like, not coming, when in fact you are.”

“I am?”

“Fuck yeah, you are!” Rose exclaimed. “You’re invited! Where’s your…”

Rose got up from the couch and went to the medium-sized pile of unopened mail that lied on the corridor table. She rummaged through it for a few seconds before producing a sound that indicated victory.

“Here,” she said, throwing the letter at Rey. “Your invitation to have some fun. I don’t want to be mean, but it looks like you need one, nowadays.”

Ah, the stinging sentence meant to arouse the sad friend. Cheap trick. The Romeos had taste. The delicate envelope displayed her name in a beautiful silver font, and the invite itself carried joyous shades of colors that expressed love and happiness. Rey was invited to the wedding and she could bring a plus one. She had no one to accompany her, unless they accepted animals there, in which case…

“Hey, Jodie,” she called her cat. “Want to go to a wedding next weekend?”

Sitting close by, Jodie made no sound indicating whether or not this was something she wanted to do. Rey kept her gaze on her until Jodie spread her legs to clean her nether regions. She turned back to Rose. Rose’s eyes were lost somewhere on the floor. Presently, Rey and her friend were on their way to spend the afternoon together, as they had spent the past night, drinking and laughing and watching stupid shit on TV. For once in a long, long time, Rey’s bed had not been cold. Her friend’s warmth and snores had been a comfort she had delighted in, purposefully staying awake as long as she could to cherish the overall presence of her companion. And Rose, whether in day clothes or pajamas, always managed to smell great. At some point in the night, Rey, as silently and smoothly as possible, had moved closer to the warmth-radiating body. The proximity of her had been mildly intoxicating. For so long there had been only her own. How soft was the flesh of her arm? Of her belly? Of her face?

The day before that sleepover had been spent in a torpor that had kept Rey from doing anything significant, and the day before that, the day of the song, had been worse than that. She had wondered why that song had upset her so. The wondering had not lasted long, though. She knew. The same things had gone through her head as she’d tried to hide under her covers and keep herself from crying. The same words, the same reasoning. You know who you are, what you’re worth, what you deserve. You know what things will happen to you, and what things won’t. You know, you know, you know. The man had not known what he’d done to her. How could he have? He’d been cruel. Unknowingly, yes, but cruel, nonetheless. The words he’d sung… No, no, no, no. No.

“I need some dick,” Rose declared out of nowhere. Rey raised her head, surprised by the words, met her eyes. “Yeah, sorry, but I need some dick. I _want_. I want to meet a tall stranger and get some tall stranger dick.”

“I’m sure you’ll get some,” Rey said, feeling this was an adequate enough thing to say. “You’re…” she moved a hand toward her friend’s body. “…you’re, uh, hot. Pretty.”

“Not as much as some people,” Rose said gratefully while at the same time widening her eyes at Rey, who scoffed and asked her to shut up. “You shut up! And, like, really shut up. I don’t want to hear anything about anything. You’re hot too. There’s no discussion. No arguing. It is what it is.”

Rey smiled despite herself. It had been a long time since the last compliment she’d heard that didn’t sound like an invitation to fuck a weird man in a bush somewhere. Sweet though it might have been, she forced her facial muscles to resume their former position. She told Rose that she didn’t have a dress worthy of the occasion. This wasn’t a problem, apparently. Rey was to stop by Rose’s job at Otomok on Monday, at noon, or maybe one, and they would take care of that.

“Plus, it’ll do you some good to see the city. And Paige will be thrilled to see you! She asks me about you so freaking much that I just gave her your number to, you know, call you, but she’s too busy being a genius, apparently, so I have to be the caring one.”

She’d said that with the most genuine smile. Rey had to break eye contact. Yes, people cared about her, which at times she considered ludicrous. At her brain’s injunction, she cleared her throat and argued that her finances weren’t at their best, that she had to manage her money until she started working steadily again.

“Wow,” Rose laughed, “you’re still acting like you have a choice. Look, I’ll get you that dress, no, shut up, I’ll get that dress, and you’ll pay me back with the money that Finn and Poe owe you, okay? Or later when you’re steady again. I happen to be a genius, too, with rich-ass clients, so, I could care less. And when it comes to you, I literally don’t care.” She moved closer to Rey, and the sofa squeaked. “Did your sofa just call me fat?” Rey laughed. Rose took her friend’s hands in hers. “I fucking hate seeing you like this, okay? I love you, and it breaks my heart. So. We’re going to go to a wedding. We’re going to drink. Responsibly. Or not. I’ll get some dick.” At this point she signed herself, looking up to the ceiling and the afternoon sky beyond it, eyes full of hope and unbridled desire. “And you’ll have the amount of fun you want to. It’s going to be okay. You’re _allowed_.”

Was she? Rose’s eyes told her that, yes, she was. All that remained was for her to believe it.

Rose went home not long after, and silence fell back upon the house. Rey sat in it for a while, her thoughts moving at a frenetic pace. She had to finish the job, yes, and she would, she would force herself to, but what if it was bad? What if they didn’t like it? What had compelled her to keep them from seeing it? What if they hated it and didn’t want to pay the other half of the price? That could happen. She could still back down from going to the wedding. She could tell Rose that she wasn’t going to come see her that Monday. Jodie could be sick. No. This was a weak excuse that Rose would see right through. Rey tilted her head back, put her arms over her eyes, and groaned loudly. Now that she couldn’t see anything she listened to the sounds of her empty house. Nothing. There was nothing.

“I don’t like quiet, Jodie,” Rey declared. “There’s too much of it and I don’t like it.” She peeked out from under the cover of her arms to see Jodie’s reaction. More of the same, just the old gal reacting at the mention of her name. In another groan, she got up and went to pick her laptop up from her workshop. In the declining light of the room, she looked at the joined hands. She judged that they looked good and stood there for a minute, relishing in her work. By the time she was done with it, it would look even better.

Back on the sofa, she stared at her screen and the basic wallpaper she’d wanted to get rid of for the past year. Next, she opened her browser and stared at it as well. Finally, she surrendered and typed the words that had been living with her for the past three or four days, the words that she had kept to herself: _trash can singing man_. There were many results, yet he was the third. Was trash can singing so popular? And how good was he among his peers? The video had been uploaded on Thursday. She touched the pad, moved the cursor to the play sign.

“Jodie, I don’t know.”

Jodie was asleep.

“You’re so fucking useless.”

But Jodie was sweet. Rey brought herself back to the screen. She thought for a few more seconds, then decided to stop. She clicked. The player appeared and he appeared too, his long legs coming out of _her_ trash bin and leading to a substantial torso under his cream shirt.

“Hey, guys, today, I find myself standing in a good old American trash can in the suburbs and, uh, yeah, it’s a beautiful day to sing in a trash can. There really isn’t anything that strange where I am, so I thought, you know what, this will have to do.”

He ran a hand in his hair, which prompted Rey to upgrade the quality of the video from an automatic 720p to a crisper 1080p. She also raised the volume. For the sake of the video.

“I’m very thankful for your guys’ comment regarding my safety in the last video! Um, you know, I thought I had to do something a bit extra if I was to sing _I’ve got the world on a string_. And I’m still alive, so, you know, um, yay!”

He laughed a goofy laugh that Rey was now remembering. Such a goofy laugh coming from someone looking like… him. He went on to say what she’d heard him saying on Wednesday. And then he started singing. This immediately brought her back, and she felt a wave of heat go through her, like that thing one felt when embarrassed. His voice wasn’t… He was okay, not bad, but not the best either. He just seemed to have _it_. Rey could see that he knew what he was doing. One did not get to – she looked under the player – one hundred seventy-two thousand and seventeen views just like that. She double-checked the number. Impressive. She looked back up.

_It’s not that you’re attractive…_

Her heart almost skipped a bit. He was looking at her. Video her. Off screen her.

_But, oh, my heart grew active_

_When you came into view_

And now he was awkwardly turning to face video her. There was something on his face she refused to categorize. A few seconds later, as the camera started turning, he lifted an arm to stop it. Rey’s thumb nail was working her teeth, her heart was beating fast and loud.

_'Cause I have got a crush, my baby on you_

And that’s when she realized that she hadn’t been breathing for the last few seconds. She inhaled deeply and exhaled through her mouth. But the video wasn’t over. The man’s arms had fallen down along his body. His whole demeanour had changed. He glanced at the camera and gave it a smile.

“Oh, man,” he said, stepping out of the bin and putting the bag back in. He wiped his hands on his pants and put them on his hips, then stopped with a puzzled look. “Okay, don’t pan to it, but there was a girl, right there, in this house.” He pointed to it, and Rey reflexively looked at her living room window. “I, uh… I don’t think she liked what just happened because she slammed her window shut and, uh…”

Rey’s feelings from that day came back, and she really fought herself to keep the video going.

“I’m sorry!” the man exclaimed, surely hoping to reach video her. By that time, she had been under her covers and unable to hear him.

“Do you want to cut it?” the cameraman asked.

“No, no, let’s keep it in… It’s, uh, that’s the way it goes, sometimes. Remember the grandma?” The cameraman laughed. The singer took a moment, his whole body still facing her house. She looked back out of the window, at the exact place he’d been standing. So close. Before signing off and walking away, he lifted a finger, pointed at her house and said: “I’ve never seen a girl like this in my entire life.”

The video ended. A tear was making her way down Rey’s face. She dried it with her sleeve. Why, oh, why was she feeling like this? Why did this hurt so much? Another video started but she immediately paused it, unable to… deal with this for the moment. What was happening? Was it the song? Was it because she’d been dying to hear these words for years? Was it because the reason it hadn’t happened yet was herself and her refusal to put herself in harm’s way? Was it because it came from him, the nameless stranger who seemed to awaken something in her?

She scrolled down the page, and her eyes fell on the channel’s name: _Ben Solo Sings Sinatra_. Ben Solo. Ben Solo, Ben Solo, Ben Solo.

“Ben Solo,” she tried, aloud. It sounded…nice.

She went on down to the comment section.

_WHO’S THE GIRL?_ had 710 thumbs ups.

_dude knock on her door_ had 365.

_I love u ur so good marry me_ _plz_ had 16.

_U can sing in front of my house anytime, my door is open and so are my legs_ had 199. _Can I come?_ someone asked under that one. _No <3._

_Your degrading sinatras music with your shit voice and your supid face you can die for all i care you ulgy fuck_ had 7.

Okay, this was enough. Rey closed her laptop, then opened it back up. What else had he done, this Ben Solo? She browsed through his videos. _Come Fly with Me_ sung in the city’s subway, with people either cheering, singing along, or asking him to goddamn it, shut the fuck, it’s eight in the morning, for fuck’s sake. _Drinking Again_ in a swimming pool. _Fly Me to The Moon_ under a bed. And it went on and on. He seemed to specialize in weird places to sing Sinatra’s songs. Okay. This was a thing. A mildly interesting thing. Barely interesting. Rey watched ten videos before starting to get hungry. She then went to a digital music platform. She might as well go to the source. Twenty bucks for a hundred songs? She preferred not to think about it. The compilation arrived on her phone quickly and, since she was spending money, she ordered a large pizza. Because why not. Some Sinatra and a pizza.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all know where I'm going with this, right?


End file.
